a museum, alone, and the assembly-place of international Councils—­the tables in the Grand Gallery, the benches between the windows, the many-branched candelabra, the tubs in which orange trees grew, were all of heavy silver.  Thousands of wax candles lighted the salon, some of them set in immense chandeliers, others in lusters of silver and crystal.  But Louis the Fourteenth’s reign was not yet over when he was compelled to send many hundred pieces of his precious furniture to the mint, and the superb appointments of the Hall of Mirrors were partially substituted by furnishings of wood and damask.

[Illustration:  The Hall of Mirrors]

Visitors to Versailles view the private or “little” apartments of King Louis the Great, Louis XV and Louis XVI.  The superb bedchamber of Louis XIV contains the bed in which the French Monarch died on September 1, 1715.  In an ante-chamber, later called the Bull’s Eye by reason of its unique oval window, courtiers were wont to gossip and intrigue while they awaited the King’s rising.  A quaint painting by a French artist presents Louis XIV and his family in the character of pagan deities.  Next to the Bull’s Eye was the room in which the King dined on occasion.  The Hall of the King’s Guards was near of approach to the Marble Staircase and to the ample and ornate apartments of Madame de Maintenon.  The wonders of this Hall are also departed.  In a group of small rooms were rich stores of objects of art, medals, cameos, onyx, bronzes, and gems of great value.

The State Apartments of the Queens of France were entirely altered in their decoration as one queen succeeded another.  Marie Therese was the first to occupy them.  We are told that before her bed there stood a railing of silver, that later gave way, for economical reasons, to one carved in wood.  In the Grand Cabinet the wife of Louis the Great received in audience those that the King commanded.  Here, at the end of a short and insignificant period as mistress of Versailles, Marie Therese died, July 30, 1683.

One of the few apartments that still retains the aspect it bore in King Louis the Fourteenth’s reign is the Hall of the Queen’s Guards, which had a door on the landing of the marble stair, also called the Queen’s Staircase.  This was the flight of steps most used in the time of Louis, since it led to the apartments of the sovereign, the Queen Madame de Maintenon.

The Ambassadors’ Staircase, across the court, was of the richest possible decoration, but like the glory of the Kings of France, it has passed into oblivion.  Louis commanded that it be paved and walled in marble from the choicest quarries, vaulted with bronze, graced by fountains.  Amazing frescoes representing a brilliant assemblage of people of all nations adorned the walls.  Of this staircase a reporter of the epoch wrote, “When full of light it vies in magnificence with the richest apartments of the most beautiful palace in the world.”  Which palace was, of course, Versailles.